Quote:
Originally Posted by megansmomma  You cannot compare a shelter adoption to a rescue adoption. Shelters a much lower bar for adoption and turn their animals over much quicker than a rescue due to space. A shelter give basic vetting, spay/neuter and basic vaccines, while a good rescue will work to address all issues, have reference checks and are able to house a dog until the perfect applicant applies. It is wonderful that the shelter that you volunteer with has such a high placement rate but unfortunately there are some that do not and have a very high kill rate. Let me also say that since I do not know what shelter you volunteer with I do not know application process or even if it is a kill shelter. |
That's correct, which is why you shouldn't generalize. The "shelter" I volunteer at is a rescue. The dogs all come from death row at kill shelters in the surrounding areas. If necessary, the dogs are rehabilitated before they are made eligible for adoption. The dogs stay as long as necessary before they are adopted.
Reasonable practices are in place to ensure good matches. The entire family, including pets, must spend several hours with the potential adoptee to make sure everyone gets along, for instance. And still, most dogs are adopted within a few weeks, and the return rate is incredibly low.
I will say as a caveat that we generally take small-to-medium sized dogs, and almost never take dogs with serious aggression problems.
I think the problem with some rescues is stated in your original quote - they wait for the
perfect applicant to apply, rather than someone very good. They think they are doing the animals a favor, but they are not. It's sad, really, that a pure-bred animal in a rescue is more likely to spend time in this stressful environment (and no matter how nice the facilities are, it's still stressful) than a mixed breed who goes to a place with more reasonable adoption standards.